


Stray

by eerian_sadow



Series: Companion Animals [3]
Category: Transformers - All Media Types, Transformers Generation One
Genre: Fluff, Gen, Prompt Response, a ratchet's not dead AU, getting adopted by a stray, reward fic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-07
Updated: 2021-01-20
Packaged: 2021-03-06 02:55:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 1,905
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25756225
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eerian_sadow/pseuds/eerian_sadow
Summary: On a cold winter day, Ratchet takes pity on a cybercat.
Series: Companion Animals [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2144685
Comments: 16
Kudos: 80





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Zarushin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zarushin/gifts).



> prompt: the Cybertron equivalent of curling up by the window to watch the snow fall, with a big mug of hot chocolate, and maybe a furbaby or snuggle friend.

When the war was over and the rebuilding had started in earnest, Ratchet had come back to Cybertron with his tools, a few trinkets from Earth, and the Protectobots. Not many of his belongings had survived the war, and the ones that had were of more use to the bots who had stayed behind on Earth than the reconstruction crews on their homeworld. He had been prepared for a Spartan life as he and First Aid set up their clinic and emergency center, but he wasn’t unhappy with the choice. 

When he wasn’t out doing search and rescue, Groove had taken up furniture making, though, and Ratchet’s apartment had quickly filled with anything he could have ever needed. Including a large, overstuffed chair that sat under the window and gave him a perfect view of both the weather and the Rust Sea. 

Today, he settled into it with a comfortable sigh and a steaming cup of warmed energon. The clinic wasn’t as busy as either of them had expected, and both he and First Aid were able to take regular breaks and rest days. It was nice, to finally feel the constant exhaustion that had plagued him during the war begin to recede. 

Though, if he was lucky, he would still manage to take a nap in his comfortable chair and wake ready for the night shift, just in case. 

He sipped his energon and watched the Sea lap at its banks for several joors. Then he turned his gaze to the neighborhood itself, hastily erected and haphazard as it was. None of the buildings were up to the standards of the Golden Age, there weren’t enough materials for that yet, but they were serviceable and no one’s roof had fallen in yet. 

One of his neighbors had even hung some kind of suncatcher off their balcony and its light threw rainbows over the entire block. He smiled at the sight for a klik.

As his optics roamed, though, he caught sight of a small silver cybercat. Its plating looked brittle, even from meters away, and it was clearly malnourished. But somehow it was managing to leap and climb up the side of the building with all the grace its species was known for.

He sighed and composed a quick message for Hound. The animal couldn’t be left out there to fend for itself when it obviously needed help. He knew that his friend’s shelter was always busy and always full, but he would, at least, be able to get the cat some veterinary care before returning it to the wild. 

A moment later, the cybercat yowled and Ratchet realized he had stopped watching it in his distraction. He looked out the window again and saw the animal staring back at him as it yowled again. Behind it, acidic snow had started to fall. 

“Well, frag.” he couldn’t very well leave it out there to be dissolved in the storm. Quickly he amended his message to Hound asking for information on how _he_ could take care of the cat as he opened the window.

The cybercat didn’t hesitate to take the offered shelter, and it squirmed into the apartment the moment the window was wide enough for its head. Ratchet shut the window again quickly, as cold air blew unpleasantly into the room.

The cat sat down in front of him and looked up at his energon pointedly.

“Well, you do probably need something. But i doubt warm, spiced energon is any better for you than it would be for a starving mech.” Ratchet stood up carefully, not wanting to spook the animal, and walked toward the kitchen. (He had said he didn’t need a kitchen, but the Protectobots had all insisted. He hadn’t fought particularly hard when the Constructicons had included it in his blueprints after that.) He could dilute a cube with oil or coolant for the cat, until Hound called him back and told him what the best fuel would be.

The cat sat patiently on the floor at his feet as he prepared the fuel. When he put the bowl down, though, the animal didn’t give him a chance to move his hand before it began drinking like the starving creature it was.

“Take it easy, little one. Don’t want to make yourself sick.” The cat looked up at the sound of his voice for a moment before returning to its frantic drinking.

Ratchet sighed and stepped away to close the doors to the rooms he didn’t want the animal to hide in. 

-_-_-_-

Hours later, Hound and called back with instructions and an apology that he wouldn't be able to pick up the cat until tomorrow, and the snow had turned into a full blown blizzard. Ratchet had pulled out the blanket he had brought back from Earth--warm and made of fluffy acrylic fibers that all of their human friends had hated but he had loved at first touch--and wrapped it around his shoulders. He moved the chair away from the window and pulled the curtains to block the cold as much as possible and settled in with a literature file and another mug of warmed energon.

He had left the cybercat in the kitchen, guarding another bowl of fuel. 

But once he was settled, he heard a soft mew kliks before a small body jumped onto his lap. He fumbled his literature pad in surprise and stared down at the cybercat as it sat down on his leg.

“That’s how it’s going to be, is it?”

The cat mewed and began cleaning one of its front paws.

Ratchet sighed again and resigned himself to the fact that he probably had a cat now. The Protectobots would love it.


	2. Chapter 2

Groove was holding the cat and scratching it between the ears while Hound examined it. It was purring despite the poking and prodding the green mech was doing, and Ratchet supposed that was progress of a sort, since it had swiped at him and taken a chunk out of one of Hound’s fluid lines the first time he had tried to examine the animal. 

“What’s his name?” Hound asked as he opened an access port and plugged a diagnostic cable in. “I know you said you hadn’t decided yet, last time.” 

“He still hasn’t,” Groove answered for him. “Last night, he said that whatever he named it couldn’t sound dumb. And before that, it had to be perfect. And it couldn’t be something from Earth.”

Hound looked up at the young mech with a laugh. “You sound bitter. What did you want to name him?”

“Snickerdoodle.”

“We can’t name a cybercat Snickerdoodle!” Ratchet replied immediately. 

“I don’t see why not,” Hound told him, returning his focus to the cat. “Remember that friend of Carly’s that used to hang around with Eject during football season? Her cat was named Cupcake.”

“That’s different. Humans can name their animals after their own foods.”

“Okay, that’s fair. But your cat is the only one of my patients without a name, Ratch.” Hound removed the cable and closed the access port. “You need to come up with something. And he’s doing very well. The supplements you started are definitely rebuilding his plating and that torn coolant line is healing up without any problems. You did good work.”

“Good. I’m glad. He scared me to deactivation when that line tore.” 

“Well, all those cycles in the trauma ward served you both well.” Hound smiled. “I’ll come back by next week and do one more check, but he should be all right now.”

“Good.” Ratchet returned his smile. “And… I guess you can put Scalpel down for his designation.”

Groove nodded. “I like it.”

“I do, too.” Hound looked down at the cable that the cybercat had torn open. “It fits. Though… you know that one of the former Decepticon medics is named Scalpel, right?”

“Oh, I’m very well aware.” Ratchet shrugged. “If you’d ever met him, you’d know he’s at least as fussy as my cat.”

Groove didn’t even try to stifle his laughter at the blunt statement.


	3. Chapter 3

“Five minutes, Scalpel.” Ratchet tapped keys rapidly, typing up the funding proposal for the hospital expansion so that it could be added to the city budget before the deadline. It hadn’t been his job to write it up, but Lifeline, Glit and Knockout had all come down with an ugly internal contamination--probably from that party they had all attended at the end of the month--and were still recovering. The proposal had been forgotten on Knockout’s desk until Prowl had asked about it when they met at the cafe for their morning fuel. 

The cat sat down next to his foot and mewed plaintively in reply, undeterred by budget proposals and funding requests. He sounded exactly like the sick, starving thing he had been when Ratchet rescued him.

“Five minutes,” Ratchet repeated. He did his best to ignore the cybercat, though Scalpel started rubbing his face against his foot. When Ratchet continued to ignore him, the cat stepped onto his foot and mewed again. Ratchet kept typing. “Four minutes.”

Scalpel stood up and put his front paws on the medic’s knee. Absently, he reached down and rubbed the cat’s head for a moment while he put his thoughts in order. Then he went back to typing. In response, Scalpel flexed his claws and dug them into Ratchet’s knee.

“Fraggit, cat!” Ratchet pushed away from the desk and reached down to remove Scalpel’s claws from his knee. “You are not dying! But my patients will if I don’t get this turned in!”

Scalpel mewed plaintively again, then glared at the medic. 

“Fine. I need to go seal these scratches anyway, fragger.” he stood up and stalked to the washroom. “You’re going to wait til I’m done before i put anything down for you, though.”

The cybercat started purring and followed him to the washroom.


	4. Chapter 4

“Ratchet, you can’t be serious.” Glit stared at the small cybercat in the carrying crate. Scalpel stared back with an equally confused gaze.

“Well, I’m in surgery until five. He’s got to have his meds at two. You’re the only medic on the floor who’s available then.” Ratchet shrugged. “If we weren’t still down a mech thanks to that spore everyone dragged back from the party, I’d just have First Aid do it.”

“So it’s not a cat joke, then?”

“No, it’s not a cat joke.”

“Fine. I’ll get him his meds at two.” Glit sighed and poked a paw through the grate in an attempt to pet the cybercat. Scalpel batted at his paw playfully instead of letting him. “What’s he being treated for, anyway?” 

“A fuel system parasite that he picked up when he snuck out of my apartment last week. Hound says it’s common in wild cybercats.” 

“As our surprisingly competent veterinarian, I suppose he would know. Thankfully, Recordicons don’t exactly have to worry about things like that.”

“Primus, just thinking about having to treat something like that in you or Steeljaw is irritating.” Ratchet laughed. “At least you can self-medicate.”

“Yes, there is that. How long is he being treated?”

“A week. We’re on day four, so it won’t be an issue again.”

“That’s almost a shame. He’s kind of cute.” Glit stuck his face closer to the crate to get a better look at the cybercat. Scalpel reached through the grate and put a paw on his nose.


End file.
